1026
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Deep@mander.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world

Online threats to children are real, but the headlong pursuit of age verification that we’re seeing around the world is unacceptable in its approach and far too broad in scope — and we simply can’t afford to get this wrong.

To be clear, parents’ concerns are valid and sincere. Few people would argue that kids should have unfettered access to adult material, to self-harm how-tos, to social media platforms that manipulate them and expose them to abuse.

But it’s the very depth of those worries that is being cynically exploited. Age verification as is currently being proposed in country after country would mean the death of anonymity online.

And we know exactly who stands to gain: The same tech giants who built the privacy nightmare that the internet is today.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] ReCursing@feddit.uk 124 points 2 weeks ago

He has a vested interest in saying that, but he's right, and it would be awful

[-] XLE@piefed.social 20 points 2 weeks ago

Proton has activists' identities at stake, of course they're doing their best to defend them

[-] qqq@lemmy.world 29 points 2 weeks ago

It's interesting what people expect of Proton Mail. I've used it for a long time but for only one reason really: their revenue stream is my subscription and not ads. I've never even given a second thought to all their encryption claims. Even with Proton Mail if I ever wanted to send a "secret" email I'd wrap the content in my own personal keys.

With respect to IP addresses of email logins, I'm surprised they ever claimed they don't have logs. You've always been able to review the IP of a login through the web UI as far as I remember. Was the idea that that was also supposed to be encrypted?

Personally I'm OK with them complying with court orders, but I understand that "the definition of criminal is state defined" and that poses serious issues. It kinda seems like if you want to do something that could be considered criminal at some point in your life by your country you should consider something other than a 3rd party email provider for those messages. Signal would be a step up in that regard if you still wanted to use a third party.

[-] XLE@piefed.social 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It's interesting what people expect of Proton Mail.

It's quite mundane actually: people expect what they advertise on their front page.

Their advertising is a stretch at the best of times, and (as seen on my first link) so terrible that it needs to be removed at other times.

[-] qqq@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago

Lol, ok, fair.

I guess I see a lot of wiggle room in the marketing speak of their page and I haven't actually "looked in to" Proton Mail's claims in a loooong time. So I guess what I really wanted to say is that it's interesting to me that people take that marketing at face value if they're actually trying to maintain secrecy. I've always just taken it as a given that third party services aren't particularly good at that, especially as they grow in complexity like Proton has. Signal has been easier for me to believe because of the singular focus and the reputation of the founder in the crypto community; although I guess he's long gone.

[-] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

They have to comply with court orders. You can't run a business and ignore the government and legal system; they will throw the book at you.

Don't use proton to do anything that could be considered a crime in the EU.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] AverageEarthling@feddit.online 59 points 2 weeks ago

I mean, I've got boxes full of physical books and self hosted movies and Tv. At that point, I'll just stop using the internet. I need to go outside more anyway.

[-] zewm@lemmy.world 38 points 2 weeks ago

Finally all my friends that been giving me shit about having a dvd collection can eat shit.

load more comments (13 replies)
[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 weeks ago

The next step will be to make more essential services online only, so people have to use the internet.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 55 points 2 weeks ago

Clearly this man is a genius.

[-] Doomsider@lemmy.world 27 points 2 weeks ago

Anyone who could not see that Trump was going to extort business for his own personal gain was clueless to Trump and his cabinet of blackmailers.

Anyone of color giving support to White Nationalists is fucking insane and shows a complete lack of understanding of current US politics.

[-] WYLD_STALLYNS@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, but the vast majority are so far beyond clueless they voted for him, again.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The nightmare trap of the Two Party System is that you can look at one party cozying up to Big Tech (Obama in 2009) and conclude the other party must be reflexively in opposition.

Trump was fully surrounded by Thiel goons before he'd even left office in '21. And the relationship only got tighter with his Elon Musk Bromance. But hey, if you'd just elected Kamala Harris and ~~Liz Cheney~~ Tim Walz to the White House, I'm sure nobody would be talking about how much of their cabinet was stuffed with Silicon Valley cutouts.

It's not like a cartel of trillionaires can buy up both parties at once, right?

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[-] RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip 45 points 2 weeks ago

Make social media unprofitable instead of this.

[-] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 21 points 2 weeks ago

Basically don't allow ads for kids and only show social media posts from their friends in chronological order instead of any fancy algorithm. Also make them liable for showing scams to minors. That kills most profit.

[-] orclev@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks ago

Kill it from the other direction. Make it illegal to algorithmically adjust a users experience to prioritize interaction regardless of whether that's positive or negative. Ultimately that's the problem with places like Facebook, they weigh an angry rant the same as a positive one, higher even in a lot of cases. Things that make people angry generate a lot more interaction than positive things so it drowns people in hate and fear. If you treat any interaction as a positive signal things just devolve.

load more comments (7 replies)
[-] SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 37 points 2 weeks ago

Anyone think that's not the point?

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago

Social media functions as a kind of gatekeeper for public interactions, not unlike credit scores, driver's licenses, and college degrees. The absence of a presence on social media is not only socially debilitating (you're cut out of the information stream for local events and public amenities) but a red-flag for college recruiters and employers. It's much like how not using a credit card regularly in your teens/20s impacts your ability to access low-interest lending in your 30s/40s. Or not having a driver's license interferes with your right to vote.

State officials have been searching for a kind of uniform, iron-clad, easily verifiable public ID for ages. Linking your online presence (a thing that you need for a myriad of daily tasks) to your ID becomes a pathway to this goal. Universal, non-transferable digital ID becomes a wicked two-edged sword as it both exhaustively tracks the "documented" individuals and neatly severs the "undocumented" from society.

load more comments (7 replies)
[-] Randelung@lemmy.world 34 points 2 weeks ago

Man, parents not wanting anything to do with their kids' upbringing will believe anything, huh. They'd rather offload any and all responsibilities to automation than spend one minute teaching kids how to protect themselves.

Then again, they probably don't know, either.

load more comments (6 replies)
[-] west2seven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

This moron is also a MAGA appologist and enabler. I left Proton for other alternatives. They want to claim they are "politically nuetral" well if you really were you wouldnt be commenting at all on politics would you?

[-] coalie@piefed.zip 20 points 2 weeks ago

I must have missed a bunch. I only recall him saying he liked trumps pick for one role.

[-] parson0@startrek.website 21 points 2 weeks ago

And afaik that was it. It has been blown out of proportion many times since by people forming opinions based on headlines. If there was anythung else I'd like to know too though

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] Photonic@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

If you would have read past that part in the same post you could have read that he also thinks republicans are sticking up for the little guy and the democrats are in bed with big tech. After that he also never said anything to the contrary. I also use his product and I wish he were a better guy too, but he said what he said and stuck with it.

So yes, you are either misinformed by not reading past the first few words of his post or disingenuous by purposely leaving out the rest.

[-] architect@thelemmy.club 9 points 2 weeks ago

Only idiots want politically neutral, anyways. I want clear biases for the people open and free forms of communication. That’s HIGHLY political.

Politically neutral supports fascism, always.

[-] tinfoilhat@lemmy.ml 27 points 2 weeks ago

How long before we get a Meshtastic style, decentralized internet?

[-] a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 weeks ago

What can I, as a regular guy, do to help make this happen?

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[-] daggermoon@piefed.world 25 points 2 weeks ago

Can we make a new internet?

[-] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 27 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, have a look at reticulum. No centralized addressing authority. No centralized domain naming system. Everything is globally routeable. It also just got support for transferring HTTP with RServer and MeshBrowser.

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 weeks ago

I always figured we would go to tor when this day came. But I keep seeing people mention all of these alternatives I have not heard of. Is this reticulum better?

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago

That's quite obviously the end goal here.

[-] treesquid@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago

"Could" is a funny way of saying "are obviously intended to". Stop playing around, call it out directly. Points where you must have your ID checked are, in fact, ID checkpoints.

[-] Siegfried@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

It bothers me that we know that this bullshit has nothing to do with the kids and is probably being lobbied by the genocide gang and AI companies, even more that it has become obvious that the only value AI has is mass monitoring, but nobody abords the real issue. We are playing their book.

[-] fodor@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 week ago

Kids don't have unfettered access if they are supervised, lol. And age gating will fail regardless. So it's a failure followed by another failure, sigh.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] Zephorah@discuss.online 14 points 2 weeks ago

Stating the obvious.

META was a major lobbyist for all of the state bills we’ve seen so far. There’s probably more. Or META is taking the lead because most hate them already, which provides a nice distraction from anyone else involved.

Tech and data centers want our data. What better way for a complete data set is there? I’m sure Palantir is in there somewhere.

[-] sturmblast@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Theres a big wide internet beyond apps and social media.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 2 weeks ago

If this becomes widespread, I just won't use any websites that require it. There will always be ways around it or alternatives for people opposed to losing their privacy. There already are at least 2 Internets. There's reddit and Facebook and Twitter and all the corporate news sites, and then there's Lemmy and archive.org and the dark web and dev pages and independent websites and piracy. I find I rarely care about the former anyway. It'll just mean being blocked off from all the corporate slop, which may be a blessing in disguise.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] myrmidex@belgae.social 11 points 2 weeks ago

People forget that the current antitrust actions against Big Tech were started under the first Trump admin

His earlier words did not age well

[-] PattyMcB@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

Dark web 2.0, here we come!

[-] artifex@piefed.social 10 points 2 weeks ago
[-] bedwyr@piefed.ca 14 points 2 weeks ago

Moreso. It can always get worse, and indeed everything is.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
1026 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

84569 readers
3500 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS